


Not Just Another Imperial Agent

by tauntaun_rider



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Drabble, Eventual Romance, F/M, Ficlet, Fluff, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-14 03:10:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11199234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tauntaun_rider/pseuds/tauntaun_rider
Summary: Set just before the end of Chapter 1 of the Imperial Agent story, Cipher Nine fights the feelings of loneliness that come with her job in Imperial Intelligence. When Vector joins her crew, she decides to take a leap of faith and put herself first for once.** Uses some of the original dialogue from the in-game conversation





	Not Just Another Imperial Agent

**Author's Note:**

> I appreciate any feedback! I'm new to fanfiction and am open to any advice that you have to offer.

Rae sat on a crate in the cargo hold, meticulously cleaning her rifle. She was closely examining the barrel when she heard a slight cough across the room. Rae looked up to see two black eyes staring back.

“Agent. Do you have a minute?” Vector took a few steps toward her.

“Of course, Vector. Give me a moment.” She turned and put the rifle back in its case before facing him. “Is something wrong?”

“We hope you don’t mind, but we were wondering something.” He paused, waiting for her cue to continue. “Do you have a family? Siblings, a husband, people to go home to after a mission?” He shifted on his feet as he rushed through the second part of his question, looking past Rae instead of at her.

“A husband? Are you asking if I’m single?” Her lips quirked in amusement. By looking at him, she could tell that both Vector the human and Vector the Joiner didn’t know how to approach the topic. It was adorable; she wasn’t used to such innocent attempts at flirting. She made a mental note to add that to the constantly lengthening list of Vector’s positive qualities.

“That was part of the question, yes.” Vector paused to look her in the eye. “We’d like to hear the answer.”

“No, there isn’t anyone,” she said, folding her arms with a chuckle. “Clear enough?”

“Perfectly clear. We don’t mean to pry,” Vector started. “We’re just trying to understand how you—how anyone—in this job keeps a tether to the real world. None of us can exist in isolation forever.”

Silence captured the cargo hold. Vector couldn’t have known that he had hit a nerve. It was a reasonable enough statement. By his neutral expression, he was either unaware of how Rae’s posture stiffened or had an excellent pazaak face.

Rae had been alone for a long time. Sure, there were flings that allowed her brief periods of bliss. Where she could pretend that the alias she had procured was reality and she wasn’t living multiple lives at once.

She thought of Sanju on Balmorra. He was her most recent fling. Sanju was a sweetheart; she couldn’t imagine how someone with such kind eyes had maneuvered himself into the position of spying on a resistance clan. He looked so innocent. And despite working on the behalf of an Empire that could be cruel more often than not, he still believed in helping people without asking for anything in return. That was rare.

But even more rare was the man in front of her. Rae had expected to add him to the list of men she could never have when they first met. She wasn’t bothered by the blackness of his eyes that matched his hair, despite Watcher Two not so subtly conveying how uncomfortable his Joiner status made her. Rae instead found him charming and was fascinated by his bond with the nest. It was as if he had lived as many lives as she had, with one glaring difference: the lives he was Joined with were real.

Just when she expected to be yanked out of her temporary life as a countess of House Thul and plopped back on her ship to continue to work in the shadows alone, Keeper sent Vector with her. It was hard to contain her glee at the news, but she allowed her extensive training to hide her feelings. If Keeper had any inkling that she was forming any kind of attachment that could be a liability, he would have taken Vector back to that cave on Alderaan himself. Or worse, killed him.

Rae brought herself back to the present, where a man to whom she found herself very much drawn had inadvertently made her focus on the worst part of her life as an agent. She was desperately lonely. She missed having someone that knew and cared about the real her – the one who was ticklish in the crooks of her elbows, the one who loved to watch the sun rise when she was home in her Kaas City apartment.

“You can live apart from the civilian world,” Rae finally said. She let her arms fall to her sides. She took a breath. “You just don’t do it alone.”

“We see,” Vector replied. He tilted his head a bit. “It’s odd, living outside the nest—there’s an intimacy among the Kind that can’t be replaced.”

She nodded. From all that Vector had told her about the Killiks and his role as Dawn Herald, she knew that any kind of companionship on the ship wouldn’t compare to being part of the hive consciousness.

“Still,” he continued. “To bridge that gap between persons… We’ll remember your advice, Agent.”

“Rae,” she said with a small smile. “Don’t call me Agent or Cipher. I get enough of that. You can call me Rae.”

“Rae,” Vector repeated. “We’ll be sure to do that.” His smile lit up his entire face. It often seemed that he subconsciously made up for the lack of expressiveness in his eyes with the rest of his face. She tried to hide just how much his smile made her melt.

“Just don’t tell Kaliyo. She’s been bugging me non-stop and she doesn’t need to know,” Rae laughed.

It was hard to read Vector’s reaction. Rae tried to make it sound lighthearted, but really, it wasn’t. Technically, if she went by what Keeper said not so long ago, she didn’t have a name anymore. She was simply another Agent or Cipher to Imperial Intelligence, someone very much expendable.

Rae didn’t care for that. She was willing to devote her life and skills to help bring peace and order to the Empire as best she was able from the shadows, but that didn’t mean she would let them rip her identity away. Her name was the one thing she kept to herself. Only now, she had shared it with Vector.

After a long pause, Vector opened his mouth as to say something just as Rae’s comm started going off in her quarters. He closed it quickly and watched her.

“If you’ll excuse me, Vector,” she said as she walked back to pick up her rifle case before leaving the cargo bay.

“Of course, Agen– Rae,” he replied with a nod.

His hand brushed deliberately against hers as she stepped around him, and Rae tried her best to conceal the blush that was rushing through her as she hurried to answer the call. Maybe he did understand all that was going through her mind. At the very least, it seemed that he wanted to.


End file.
